Dead Letters
by Abby Kellogg
Summary: Every Monday morning, Harry gets a letter. A love letter. These letters become an anchor in a world of uncertainty despite their content. One Monday, there is no letter waiting.


**Dead Letters**

Every Monday morning Harry gets a letter.

It started a few months ago. At first he didn't understand. He thought that someone was stalking him. In a way, he was scared. But as it went on he tried to understand. To see who was sending him the notes. It was the same sort of letter every Monday. A letter written in a messy copperplate. The same longing and pain filling them. The same form. They haunted him at night. They filled his dreams. And he wondered.

He got used to them. Even started to appreciate them, anticipating their arrival on Monday mornings, clutched in faithful Hedwig's beak. Until one day. One day, he found out the hard way. He found her lying on the ground. Wrists slit, blood everywhere. Pale face. Bloodless face. He cried that day. And the next. But he did not understand. He never would. She died. She killed herself. She left him. She took with her all the letters she had not written. Depriving him of them. She left him with no more Monday letters.

The day it all started, I will never forget. It was a Monday morning. We were all sitting at the house table, laughing, happy. The mail came. I wasn't expecting anything, so it was a bit of a surprise when Hedwig flew down, dropping a letter in my porridge. I retrieved it, tapping it with my wand to clean it. The messy copperplate script I would get to know intimately scrawled my name on the front of the envelope. It was sealed with a dab of red wax and a signet representing a griffon was pressed into it. I shoved the letter into my pocket to read later, thinking nothing more of it.

Later, when I was in the common room, I opened it. Ron was reading over my shoulder. My first reaction was to laugh. There on the thick parchment was a letter. A sort of love letter. Written in that same messy copperplate script.

_Every time I look at you. It hurts more. Yet I cannot be without you. You are my everything. All it takes for me to be happy is one of your smiles. All it takes for me to be sad is for you to look away and past me and smile at someone else. When you aren't there, I cannot feel. You are my everything. My life. My hope and my desolation. The times that you smile at me are becoming more and more infrequent. More and more often I go to bed a hole in the place of my heart. One day, it will be too late. My heart will be gone. Gone to a place where nothing can get it to come back. Not even one smile from you. I love you. Or maybe it is the idea of you that I love. Why don't you love me? Or even just the idea of me? Why? Why do I have to suffer so much? Why? Why do I lose a bit more of my soul every day? Why do you destroy me so?_

_It hurts so much._

A very strange love letter. I dismissed it as something crazy, someone who was out their mind and wanted to make me feel scared. Ron thought that it must be one of my stalkers; it wouldn't be the first time one of them had sent me a letter. I put it under my extra clothes in my trunk. Even to this day, I don't know why I kept it.

The following Monday, I received another one. The same messy copperplate script. The same creamy parchment. The same red wax. The same griffon signet. The letter was shorter.

_Why do I let hurt me you? Why do I love? Why do I feel? Why do I let myself be destroyed?_

_Why?_

_It hurts so much._

At that point I became worried. I was afraid that Ron might be right. But this girl (for I was sure that it was a girl) was very obsessed. Almost painfully obsessed. I thought that it would be the last. I knew it would be the last. I placed it on top of the other one and under my old clothes with the sneakoscope as company. I locked my trunk. I didn't want anyone to see it. Not even Ron. It was too personal.

But it was not the end. It wasn't even close to the end. The next Monday I once again received a creamy parchment envelope in my porridge courtesy of Hedwig. I stuffed it into my cloak pocket. When I opened it later in the dorm room, I understood why the one from the week before was so short. She had continued it in this one.

_Maybe it's because I cannot do anything else. Maybe because it has gone on for too long. Why don't you smile anymore? You don't. I know. I've seen you in pictures. You don't smile. You look… bored. You look almost sad. Alone. Hurt. Like you want to die. Do you not want to live? But if you left me, I don't know what I would do. Please don't leave me. Please, don't leave. Please. I love you too much. It would destroy me. Destroy me entirely. I am… already dead. Only you can save me. I love you. An obsessive, compulsive love. A destroying love. Something that scares me. I don't know where the limit is. I don't know to how far I will go before reaching it. It frightens me. And yet, still and always, I love you._

_It hurts so much._

Something in this letter caught my attention. I think it was then that I started to look forwards to Monday mornings. I wanted to get my letters. They were addicting. I was obsessed with her letters. I still am. I miss them. They were part of me, even if it was for only a short while.

Harry lies in bed. Thinking. The letters are next to him. Harry picks one up. He doesn't need any light to read it. He already knows it by rote. Her words reach out to him. He now knows the voice that would have thought them. The voice that went with the words. He can hear her voice talking to him, imploring, begging him to listen.

_I have loved you for so long that I no longer know what it is like not to love you. You are there and I am here. You are here for me to love you and I am here to love you. There can be no other purpose to our existence. You exist to perpetually break my heart and perpetually fix it. I exist to perpetually love you and perpetually have a broken heart._

_It hurts so much._

Another picked up.

_Every time I look at you. I hurt more. Yet I cannot be without you. You are my everything. I love you. You and only you. Perpetually. I love you. Always. Forever. I love you. Even though it hurts. You are my world. My reason for living. How can I love you when you destroy me a little more every day? How? Why? Why does it hurt so much when you don't smile at me? Why does it hurt so much when I notice how insignificant I am to you? To the world. In life._

_It hurts so much._

Tears glitter in Harry's eyes, an unusual sight. He cannot believe that she is gone. Her voice is soft in his imagination, it caresses his senses. He can feel her pain and yet the love that fills her letters makes him happy. He picks up another one. This one was already tear-stained when he received it.

_How dare she touch you? You smile when she touches you. Do you like her? You smile when any girl touches you, kisses you, hugs you. Yet I am not allowed to touch you, to kiss you, to hug you. I want to. God, how I want to. But I'm too afraid. Afraid of being hurt even more. Afraid of being rejected. By you. I love you and yet I fear you. I hate you. I hate you for not noticing. I hate you for smiling at the other girls. Why can't you see me? Am I that ugly? Am I that unattractive? That hideous? Or am I just part of the background? Part of the scenery? Have I been there too long? I have. I have loved you for too long. I love you. I love you so much that it hurts. I love you and it kills me slowly. Every day, I die a little bit more. When will this end? When will I not be killing myself? When will I stop loving you? When will you notice me?_

_It hurts so much._

Harry hears her whisper, "It hurts so much." Her prim and proper voice murmurs. His memory of her laugh fills his mind. He picks up another letter to block out the memories that threaten to consume him.

_Those words. They echo in my mind. It. Hurts. So. Much. I love you and it hurts. It hurts and I love you. I love you. I love you. I love. I. What am I? Am I simply a shadow awaiting my judgement? Do I really exist? Is the pain I feel real? It hurts. Reality hurts. It burns. It kills. Mum always warned me about playing with fire. But I didn't understand. There is another type of flame. Another type of fire. A fire of the heart. It has burned for so long. And now I've been burnt. And the burn will kill me. The hurt will kill me. The love I feel will kill me. I love you and it hurts._

_It hurts so much._

Harry feels the truth of her words in his soul. He knows that he killed her. A sob escapes his mouth. She is gone. And she had foreseen it. He had not listened. He had heard, but he had not listened. Now he understands the difference between the two. If you listen, you act. If you hear, you do not.

_Time and time again, I tell myself to forget you. To stop loving you. But I can't. My existence has been based on my love for you for so long that I can no longer remember what it was like not to love you. You define my days. Put in details that never blur. Everything else blurs. Disappears. Fades. You remain sharp and clear in my mind. You are there. Or at least my memories of you. Memories that are sometimes happy, sometimes painful. No matter how painful, I cannot block them out. They remain. Stuck. Stubborn. They hurt me. They hurt me so much. They remind me of why I should not love you. Why I should forget you. But I can't._

_It hurts so much._

This one falls from his nerveless hands. He doesn't need to pick up the last one. The memory of finding it is fresh enough in his mind. This one was different from the others, but yet similar enough so that he recognised it.

I walk to the Great Hall slightly earlier than usual. It is a Monday morning. Unlike the majority of the Hogwarts population, I look forwards to Mondays. I get mail on Monday. Not just any mail. My mail. My letters. But today, I won't be getting any letter. At least not the way I had come to expect.

On the floor in front of me there is a black heap. It looks suspiciously like a student who has fallen asleep. Their hood covers their head. I can't see who it is. I bend down to wake them up. They are cold. My hand is damp and sticky from where I touched the student. My hand is covered in blood. I yell for help. I kneel down. Uncover their head. "Ginny. Ginny." I try to wake her up. I can't. Blood is pooled beneath her body. There, clutched in her hand, is an unsealed envelope with my name on it in a messy copperplate script, in the other is a knife. A bloody knife. Her wrists are slit. Her eyes are open and glassy. I know who _she_ was. _She_ was Ginny. Sweet, innocent Ginny. I clutch her hardening body to me. I cry. I am ripped from her body. Hermione and Ron cradle me. I tear at them. I try to get to her. "It's all my fault." I cry over and over again. The letter is pressed into my hand. It is blood stained. A proof of her death and her passion. Of her love. Her last testament. It rests with the others. A dead letter coming from death about death. Ginny died while writing. The last refrain of "It hurts so much" is written in blood.

_You look at the other girls. As if they were meat. Then you whisper to me. "Fortunately I have principles,"and wink. Like if I'm just one of the guys you hang out with. But I'm not. I'm a girl, can't you see that? I know I'm not as beautiful as the other girls. I know I'm not skinny and leggy. I'm me. Why can't you see past the chubby exterior? Do I scare you? My eyes are filled with admiration, with love. Because I love you. I love you and therefore I am. I cannot live without you and yet I am without you now. I can no longer laugh fake laughs; I can no longer stare at you from afar. I can no longer live because…_

_It hurts so much._

Fine


End file.
